


Mii28eehaviior

by ang3lba3, vriskasnerket



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Bigender Sollux, Humanstuck, everyone's an asshole, retail hell, tags will appear as we go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 04:09:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11096595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ang3lba3/pseuds/ang3lba3, https://archiveofourown.org/users/vriskasnerket/pseuds/vriskasnerket
Summary: Vriska struggles with the sham of capitalism. Meanwhile, Sollux decides to buy some new shoes.Things escalate quickly.





	Mii28eehaviior

**Author's Note:**

> tags (including pairings and etc) will be added as time goes. but seriously, if you're not able to deal with graphic depictions of violence, this is NOT the fic for you. all of vriska and vriska's dialogue was written by vriskasnerket (same on ao3 and tumblr), and she also drew the lovely illustration at the bottom.

It was a pretty normal day at Stepping Out, Skaia City’s favorite shoe store for suburban mothers and their disgusting children. Vriska stood behind the counter, ignoring the carnage as three elementary and below children trashed the store and their mother tried on clearance rack dress shoes.

Row after row of shoes lined the walls and several aisle, all available to be knocked over by rampant children. The assistant manager, whose name probably started with a C but that Vriska still hadn’t learned after several months working there, picked up after them in a losing battle.

Any day now she’ll quit, Vriska thought, then her jo8 is as good as mine.

Which meant that she had to actually suck it up and do her job. She straightened up from where she had been settled on her elbows behind the counter to watch the door.

Sollux walked into the shoe store with an upbeat heart and Spiderman socks. For him he was dressed rather conservatively, Coca-Cola t-shirt, jean skirt, one black Nike and one red, a blue butterfly barrette, and a red hair bow that matched the shoe and shirt. It all matched, but it was covered in wrinkles and food stains and crumbs.

His aesthetic was on point, but all the clothing was also picked up off the floor of his dorm room.

He headed straight for the rack of sandals. Most of his summer shoes had suffered an unfortunate accident at the hands of a late night, stumbling, and Sollux attempting to carry a full pot of coffee. Before even picking out something to try on he kicked out of his shoes and pushed them in a corner with his toes.

“Welcome to Steppin’ Out…” a sales associate said from his right, and he glanced her over while she talked. Her name tag said Vriska, and her long tangled hair said she hadn’t used a hair brush in two days. “Is there anything I can help you with today?”

A sickly, forced grin stretched across her face as she spoke. Sollux leaned away.

“We’re currently running a 8OGO special, 8uy one and get out…” she hissed under her breath, too low for Sollux to catch.

“Um,” Sollux said, thrown off by both the unexpected human interaction and the human interacting with him. She had the famous retail employee I’m-dying-inside smile, with a dash of and-I’m-fucking-taking-you-with-me. “I need some sandals that won’t fall apart after ten minutes of continuous use, but still look fancy. I got some shit I gotta do this summer.”

“Hmmmmmmmm, let me see,” Vriska said, pretending to think while eyeing the most expensive pair on the wall. “Allow me to 8egin by saying I am defin8ly NOT paid 8y commission, nor do the store’s overall profits affect my wages in any way."

She cleared her throat and glanced around, making sure every other employee was occupied elsewhere. A kid screamed. Her smile turned a little more genuine, and she reached for the overpriced shoes.

“This pair is a8solutely lovely, don’t you think? They’re a 8it pricey, but you really do get what you pay for… pro8a8ly…” Vriska said the last part so quietly as to be impossible to be heard. She kept sharp eyes on Sollux’s face even as she presented the shoes.

His eyes lit up at the red sequined pair of platform sandals, with their glitzy overlapping straps. They were incredibly tacky. He loved them immediately. When he reached out to touch one of the straps they were a soft, possibly leather, material that felt as sturdy as it was flexible. He glanced at the shelf and saw there was also a pair in blue, and was sold.

“I’ll take one red and one blue pair,” Sollux said. He wasn’t sure he had many outfits these would go well with, but he’d buy new outfits if he had to. He had a credit card, a large allowance, and an almost obsessive compulsion to fit his aesthetic.

Vriska’s eyes widened.

“W8 what?????!!!” she blinked, struggling to remove the giant, neon dollar signs from her eyes. “8oth, as in two pairs????????”

Before Sollux could change his mind—er, answer her—Vriska snatched the blue shoes from the shelf and rushed to the register. She stopped midstride and swiveled back around to face him. _8etter milk him for all he’s worth!_

“Is there anything else I can help you find today? Flats? Sneakers? PEEP TOE PUMPS?” Vriska motioned for him to follow her. “I’ll set these up on the counter while we look around. We have a gr8 selection, please make yourself profita8le—I mean, COMFORTA8LE!”

Vriska’s grin, while now much more authentic, still retained its unnerving, feverish shape.

Sollux fought the urge to edge away from her, considering she had technically been nothing but helpful so far. He was starting to doubt that she wasn’t paid on commission, but hey—he’d come in here expecitng to drop a lot of money. He might as well make her day.

Her scary, disturbing, aggressively smiling day.

“Yeah, though we should get a cart. I wouldn’t want to clog up the counter for these other,” he paused and glanced at the rampaging children and the mom intentionally leaving the store employees to babysit them, “respectable customers.”

He wandered in the direction of a pair of gladiator sandals with blue rhinestone patterns on the laces. They would probably break unless he was extremely careful with them but they were fucking gorgeous.

“Yes! A8solutely! You name it, you got it!” Vriska said, falling just short of wringing her hands together like a miserly cartoon villain. She returned with a small hand cart, placing the two pairs he’d already picked out in it.

She leaned in with interest to inspect the ones he was looking at (or their price tag), and was surprised to see they were ones she’d considered getting in red. “Oh, those are actually not that 8ad.”

Sollux snorted quietly as he tried them on, and gestured for her to put a red pair, same size, in the cart. ‘Those are actually not that bad’—she was a fantastic salesman, alright.

“So, are you in school, or?” he asked, trying to make casual conversation as he looked around for something else to catch his eye once he’s decided fuck yes to the shoes. “I go to Crocker, I haven’t seen you around.”

Not that if she went to Crocker she’d have a job at a shitty shoe store, but hey, you never know. The preppy ass college he attended had scholarship students, but barely. Even full ride students couldn’t afford to live on the meal plan that was provided, what with the exorbitant costs at the cafeteria. Betty knew who the rich alumni wanted in their kid’s social circle, is all he was saying.

“I go to—I mean, I went to Skaia U…” Vriska corrected herself, still in the habit of bragging about a credential she no longer had. She cleared her throat dramatically, and scrambled to change the subject. “Oh, wow! Would you look at that,” she said, pointing behind Sollux.

Without waiting for him to turn around, Vriska knocked a small stack of shoeboxes over into the next aisle. It almost wiped out a rampaging toddler, who shrieked in fright.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Vriska’s smile morphed into a playful smirk as the toddler started crying.

Sollux still wanted to grab some more summer shoes, but this woman was clearly unhinged, and he was starting to get scared for his safety. He was as easy to knock over as a column of shoeboxes, and more would break if he fell.

“…no, I think I’m good,” he said, inching around her and heading towards the counter without moving his eyes from her. There was something distinctly off about her, and he decided when he got back to his room he’d look her up, make sure she wasn’t a serial killer or something. There couldn’t be that many people named Vriska in a city the size of Skaia, after all.

At least 60% of dealing with paranoia as a hacker was breaking into other people’s personal records to make sure they had no motive to kill you.

“Suit yourself,” Vriska shrugged and trailed Sollux closely as he walks to the counter. She flashed a victory glare at the toddler, and the mother shushing him looked at her oddly.

She hauled the cart up onto the counter and took her place behind the register, ringing them up in with practiced speed and neutral distaste.

“That’ll 8e…” she glanced up at the total. That’s a lot of twos, and her face lights up with victory at the sale as she makes extremely direct eye contact with Sollux. “$222.22. Cash or credit?”

Sollux’s face lit up in a blinding smile. It was more than he’d really meant to spend, but how could he care about that when it was perfection?

“Credit!” he said cheerfully, digging out his wallet from the pocket of his jean skirt to avoid eye contact. It’s almost embarrassing, and certainly confusing to others, how obviously ecstatic he is with the number. He’s going to hang the receipt on the wall when he gets home.

The wallet has bees embroidered into the leather, and he digs out a custom credit card with the Bee Movie star on it. He swiped it and typed in his pin (2468) before scribbling an approximation of his name on the receipt.

Vriska had been busy raising her eyebrow at his excitement over the number, his bee patterned wallet and his bee patterned credit card. All she could make out of the mess of his name was Captor. She made a mental note to find out what this guy’s fuckin’ deal was, and what kind of dirt she could dig up on him.

“Thank you for shopping at Steppin’ Out,” she said, sliding the bag over the counter, eyebrow somewhere in the stratosphere. “Have a gr8 day.”

Sollux took his bag, and then said what he’d wanted to since he’d first came into the store: “I’ll just be… steppin’ out then.”

Then he bravely ran away from the slack jawed expression of Vriska at his terrible pun. Vriska, meanwhile, watched him walk out the door with her mouth agape before sprinting to the back of the store. She stuffed her sweater in her mouth from her locker and screamed into the bunched up fabric.

Truly, this was retail hell.

 

**Author's Note:**

> find me at ang3lba3.tumblr.com and vriska at vriskasnerket.tumblr.com!


End file.
